Diversity

To be an effective teacher, it’s essential to be able to respond to academic failure and misbehavior in all students. If you attempt to instruct and discipline all children based on your own cultural frame of reference, you are setting yourself up for failure. Culturally diverse children resent being educated from a viewpoint that devalues their cultural heritage.

They perform best when instructors incorporate aspects of their cultural experience into the curriculum and discipline them with cultural sensitivity. Remember this the next time you attempt to reprimand or give up on a minority student just because she is not assimilating into the Eurocentric mainstream.

Teachers should respond to academic and behavioral problems in the following ways:

1. Begin interventions with the child as soon as a problem becomes apparent to prevent them from falling further behind academically, or, in the case of a behavioral problem, to prevent the situation from escalating.
2. Schedule a meeting with the child’s parents and other relevant professionals as soon as possible to discuss how to best deal with the child’s issues.
3. Make a list of the child’s positive attributes and skills to cultivate feelings of hope, caring, and encouragement. This transmits a sense of confidence in the student, which will help them become resilient.
4. Recognize your own feelings of emotional burnout. Children are good at sensing when they are aggravating someone, or are not liked, and it will hurt their ability to learn, as well as the teacher’s ability to provide effective instruction and guidance. Discuss feelings of frustration with trusted colleagues to gain perspective, and hopefully, to avoid burnout.
5. Do not let your feelings of frustration about a child with academic and/or behavioral issues negatively impact your attitude and teaching style with the rest of the class.
6. Document all intervention efforts to provide accurate feedback on the child’s progress as well as to inform parents and other professionals about the steps taken to remedy the situation.

What did we miss?

Ever since the events of 9/11, Americans haven’t been able to separate themselves from the “all Muslims are terrorists” trope. As a matter of fact, our country has become increasingly Islamophic since then. Islamaphobia is the hatred of, prejudice against, or fear of Muslims or the Islamic religion. In some ways, Islamophics assume that all Muslims are terrorists or support terrorism. While it is true that some Muslims fit this characterization, the majority of them are anti-terrorists and denounce acts of terrorism.

Challenging Islamophia with education

With Islamophobia being so ingrained in the American psyche, how do we challenge this practice? The best way to do this is through education. This means that we need our K-12 teachers and education administrators to lead the charge. This is obviously problematic because educators as a whole are just as Islamophic as the general public. However, educators can be swayed through re-education activities.

Before you start getting bent out of shape, let me clarify. When forced to confront the truth about Islamophia, educator’s logic and sense of professional ethics can be used to recenter their beliefs about Muslims. Also, educators can use this information to educate parents that may be outraged because their children are being taught that not all Muslims are terrorists or a threat to our democracy. They will be doubly upset if this runs counter to what they are teaching their children at home. Once parents have been swayed, you can move on to the teaching and learning portion.

Many of the teaching and learning resources about Islam tend to focus on increasing students knowledge of religious texts, beliefs, and rituals as opposed to confronting the root causes of Islamophobia. This is not the best way to tackle the issue. The most effective way to confront Islamophobia is by placing Islam in a context that Americans can relate to. One way to do this is to discuss the shared cultural and religious history of Islam and Christianity, which is the most practiced religion in the United States.

As a teacher, you don’t need a degree in Islamic studies, as there is no need to delve too deeply into the faith and practice of the Islamic religion. All you need is an internet connection, and a desire to learn. From there, you can find or create a lesson plan or an entire unit plan that forces your students to rethink what they know about Islam and the history of Muslims living in America. Once it becomes clear that Islam is a is a religion of peace, you will discover an ugly truth, Islamaphobia a practice that is rooted in America’s history of fear and racism.

Conclusion

As I have laid out in this article, the only way to confront Islamophobia is through education. We hope this article gave you some ideas for how you can use knowledge to challenge Islamophia in your classroom and community. Below we have listed some lesson plans that can get you started.

Resources

Black Muslims in the United States: An Introductory Activity

American Hate: Lessons from Survivors

Black Athlete Protest: The Case of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf

Maybe you’ve witnessed a classroom where the focus on learning is intense.

A hum of excitement resonates in the air, and everyone, the teacher and students alike, goes about their work with a focused purpose. Everyone is engaged. The workflow is fluid. Routines are seamless. The students help each other succeed.

Maybe that classroom is yours.

If it’s not, it can be.

Explain the plan

A culture of learning consists of specific thinking habits.

What your students think about themselves and what they believe they are capable of are part of their thinking habits. Some of these habits have been formed in their home environments. Your thinking habits are part of your classroom, as well.

The key to creating your classroom learning culture lies in showing your students the high expectations you have for them. Talk with them about:

• What does engaged learning look like?
• What would the student be doing in this environment?
• What would the teacher be doing?
• How okay is it to make mistakes?
• What kinds of things should be celebrated?

When you establish the model you have in mind for a culture of learning, it’s time to inspire your students.

Inspire your students

Your next step is to inspire your student to create a learning culture in the classroom. The word “inspire” means to breathe life into,” and that’s what you’re doing at this stage.

You can inspire your students in these ways:

• Allow for student voice. Let your students express their opinions, even if they are different from yours or their peers.
• Embrace failure. Failure is learning. As Thomas Edison observed, he learned many ways not to make a light bulb before coming up with one that worked.
• Provide ongoing feedback. Your students need to know how they’re doing.

You’re breathing life into your classroom culture.

Sustain the culture

Once you’ve set a culture of learning in place, you’ll want to sustain it.

• Encourage curiosity in your students by asking them questions that make them eager for discovery.
• Invite students to problem solve so they can experience success, even if they fail first.
• Find the positive and show that you value it. Especially reinforce the positive behaviors you agreed at the onset of your transformation.

Behind the scenes

What happens when you get a new student in the middle of the year?

Go back to step one and explain the plan. It’s how you “do business” in the classroom. A new student might not recognize the learning culture and the parameters you’ve set.

You must also plan for the times when you might not be in the classroom.

If you have to take a sick day, or you’re required to attend professional development, will your students be able to sustain the culture while you’re gone? Leave a plan in place for the substitute, and explain what the learning culture should look like, even to an outsider.

Once the workflow is in place, and the routines have become seamless, you are on your way. You and your students will travel an amazing path toward creating a sustainable classroom culture of learning.